CNN News Anchor Chris Cuomo has been diagnosed with Covid-19 and he continues to broadcast from home. He has been very open about his fevers, chills and shortness of breath as well a phantasmagorical visions. In one of his broadcasts he said doctors are referring to the virus as “The Beast” and he said that April will be the Cruelest month. Indeed the hospitals in New York City are being overrun with patients infected with the virus. Refrigeration trucks are being set up outside hospitals to be used as temporary morgues since the morgues are already over run.
Cuomo’s reference to the Covid-19 virus at “The Beast” reminded me of a painting I studied as an art student by Rubens called “Daniel in the Lion’s Den.” I imagined those lions representing the virus as they pace in the cramped hospital room. I have seen so may picture of doctors exhausted emotionally and physically to the point that they just collapse on the floor or under a table. A photo of a nurse whose face was scarred by her surgical mask went viral.
Healthcare workers at Mount Sinai Hospital held photos
of sick colleagues at a protest demanding more personal protective equipment (PPE) in New York on April
3, 2020. Hospital staff were not able to get tests even after a nurse contracted the virus and died. The death of Kious Jordan Kelly, 48, was confirmed by Mount Sinai
Hospital. It comes amid an escalating crisis in New York in which
hospitals are faced with surging numbers of Covid-19 patients and
shortages of crucial medical equipment and protective gear for staffers. Senior Vice President Vicki R.
LoPachin announced that starting on Tuesday, April 7, Mount Sinai staff who develop symptoms consistent with Covid-19, will be tested for this viral infection within a few days of the onset of symptoms.
On March 13, 2020 one nurse developed symptoms after treating a patient. Symptoms included shortness of breath, fever, and an unrelenting, dry cough. She was told to manager her symptoms at home because she could not be tested. She instead turned to her primary care physician who told her to call the Covid hotline. She waited two hours online and eventually was sent to another hospital to get tested. She tested positive. After seven days of managing symptoms at home and not improving, a
primary care doctor prescribed new treatment medication:
hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and zinc.
Doctors and nurses are referring to the hospitals as war zones. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Hospital staff said nurses were told to reuse gowns, ration N-95 masks, and
wear surgical masks, which do not offer the same level of protection
against the virus. Some nurses in England have had to resort to wearing garbage bags since there is such a shortage of scrubs. Nursing staff are pulling together and doing what they can to rise above this disaster. One of the horrible aspects of this virus is that it forces patients to suffer alone.
Fourteen white tents have been set up in Central Park to handle the overflow of patients from the hospitals. The 68-bed facility is run by Mt. Sinai Hospital, which is located
directly across the street from the tents in Central Park. Other locations hosting medical pop-ups include the Javits Convention Center and the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. The USNS Comfort Hospital Ship docked at pier 19 to assist in the pandemic. AS of April 4, 2020 the ship accepted “less than five” patients who were infected. Initial screenings prior to patients boarding the ship did not reveal that they had contracted the virus. The CDC screenings consist only of a temperature check and “a series of
questions addressing member’s recent health and contact history.” A ship can be a highly deadly breading ground for a deadly virus. The Comfort, which can hold up to 1,000 hospital beds, has treated fewer than 30 patients since arriving in New York on Monday March 30, 2020.